My dad, when asked the secret of good photography, quotes Ansel Adams — “F-8 and be there.” This means just get out in the field with your camera set and ready.

One of my college roommates shared, “You win some; you lose some. Some get rained out, but you have to dress for all the games.” I use this to remind myself that no matter how things turn out, I have to keep showing up in life ready to play.

For bird watching, I came up with a variation on these two sayings: “Keep your binocs handy, and make sure you look at every bird.”

During fall migration, the birds are on the move and you simply never know when an unusual visitor might appear. Every time I glance out my windows, I do a quick bird inventory. After years of watching, I know my regulars — cardinal, house finch, chickadee, titmouse, blue jay, grackle, mourning dove. Occasionally, I do a double take.

Wait a minute! There’s a bright red bird in the bottlebrush. I grab the binoculars for a closer look. It doesn’t have a crest or a black face. The beak is thin and pale, not stout and orange. Yes! It’s a male summer tanager.

Another morning, I spot what looks like a house finch on steroids. It’s brown and streaky, but way too big. Closer observation with my handy binocs reveals a bold white stripe above the eye and an extra-heavy pinkish beak. Sure enough, it’s a young male rose-breasted grosbeak.

I get lots of reports at this time of year that start with “I saw a yellow bird.” The bad news is that there are about 20 species of all-or-partly-yellow birds that might be passing through our area. Like any good detective, I start in with the questions.

“Where did you see this bird? Was it on a feeder, in the birdbath, in a bush? What did its beak look like — thin and pointed, or stout and conical? Was it bigger or smaller than a cardinal? Did it have wing bars?”

About this time, my star bird witness gets that glazed-over look and starts to stutter. “I’m not sure Officer Churchill. I confess. I didn’t have my binoculars and I couldn’t see its beak but it was smaller than a breadbox and I caught it breaking into my bird feeder.”

Occasionally an observer whispers the magic words: “I have a photograph.”

In this digital age, people are more likely to have a camera at hand than a pair of binoculars. While our memories are prone to error, technology can reveal the yellow bird to be all yellow with no wing bars and a beady black eye — a yellow warbler. Or perhaps it was bright yellow-orange with bluish wings and white under the tail — a prothonotary warbler.

When dealing with flocks of birds, it can be particularly challenging to look at every bird. One of my friends glanced at flock of white-throated sparrows in her yard and caught a glimpse of something yellow. Having grown up in Wisconsin where they are more common, she recognized her unusual for Georgia visitor as a dickcissel. On another occasion, she was scanning a flock of red-winged blackbirds and found that an uncommon yellow-headed blackbird had fallen in with the wrong crowd.

On the beach, I am constantly confronted with large flocks of gulls and terns. It is tempting to just call them all “seagulls” and keep walking. However, I stop and methodically study the flock. Midway through my scan I am rewarded. There, in the middle of the group, is my first of the fall Caspian tern — with a red-orange bill and sleek black cap, larger than the nearby royal terns.